“Nicky, I talked Amanda into moving in with me,” Melissa said. The three of us were sitting in the Horse and Groom to celebrate the six-month extension of my visa. “She’s in that parky bedsit, you know. I put her in Jake’s old room.”
“Thank God. It’s about bloody time.” Nick turned to me. “Now you won’t have to go back to the States.”
“And Nicky, your room is always there whenever you want it. But I don’t think you fully understand the situation.” Melissa glanced at me quickly. “Amanda could only extend her visa for another six months. You can’t live in the UK more than twelve months on a tourist visa, which is what she has. But we think we’ve sussed a way around it. There’s something called the Unmarried Partners rule. If Amanda lives with me for two years, she can apply to stay in Britain if we say we’re partners. Unmarried, same-sex partners. Do you know what I mean?”
Nick nodded. “That’s brilliant. I didn’t know we had that here. But will there be any problem with you not being a lesbian? Should we say she’s my partner?”
“Uh—” I cleared my throat, “Melissa has the financial resources and the space. She’s kind of sponsoring me, you know, saying she’ll be financially responsible so I won’t rely on public funds. And we really have got to live together. They check. We have to provide evidence we’re in a real relationship.”
“Oh, I get it,” Nick said quietly. She turned defensively to Melissa. “And that’s a problem for you, is it? You have a problem with pretending to be gay? Is that why you both look so tense? Because if it is—”
“No, sweetheart.” Melissa gripped Nick’s hand reassuringly. “That’s not a problem for me.”
“So everything’s alright then, yeah?” Nick looked to me for confirmation.
“We’ll be living as same-sex partners,” Melissa said.
Nick shrugged. “Who cares what you do if Amanda can stay? Just be openly affectionate. You already are. Are you afraid of what people will think? Your mates? Are you worried about your practice? I know it’ll be hard on you, living a lie an’ all that, but if it means Amanda can stay—please, Melissa, you’ve got to do it. Are you afraid it’ll fuck up your love life? Just date that bloke you’ve been seeing in secret. Say it’s like Romeo and Juliet or something. Make it all sound romantic and clandestine. He’ll go fer it.”
“You don’t understand,” Melissa said patiently. “I broke up with Martin. Amanda and I want to live as unmarried partners.”
“Then it’s alright. Keep your personal life private. You can do that.”
“No.” Melissa shook her head. “You still don’t get it. We’ll be unmarried partners. We are unmarried partners.” Nick continued to look confused. Finally Melissa said, “Nicky, Amanda and I have been seeing each other.”
“What?” Nick stared at her incredulously.
“I thought you might have guessed with Amanda spending so much time at mine.”
“Wait. What?” Nick was utterly mystified. “What do you mean you’re seeing each other? As in dating? You’re not gay, Melissa, are you?”
“I’m not. I mean I wasn’t. Not till just lately. I mean, I never was before.” Melissa studied her pint of real ale. “Nicky, I can’t believe this never occurred to you.”
“Me? It didn’t occur to me?” Nick said emotionally, rising from her seat. “Well, it didn’t. I don’t know what to say. I’m absolutely gobsmacked.”
“I’ve never had these feelings for another woman before,” Melissa said. “It’s caught me by surprise.”
“Caught you by surprise?” Nick said with a tremor in her voice, falling back into her chair, her eyes reddening. “How could you not have told me?”
“I am telling you. This just happened,” Melissa said. “This really never occurred to you?”
“No,” Nick said. She looked down at her hands on the table. I saw a tear land on her wrist. “I’m going back to mine.” She stood up falteringly. Melissa instinctively jumped up and put out a hand to grab her because she seemed so unsteady, but Nick stepped out of her reach.
“Hang about, you don’t have to go. Wait.” Melissa hurriedly shrugged on her black denim jacket over the bright-red university sweatshirt she’d borrowed from me. “We’ll take you.”
I followed them out. We started walking up Heath Street toward the tube.
Melissa put her hand on Nick’s arm. “Are you sure you want to leave it like this?”
Nick wavered, and the three of us sat down on the curb across from Hampstead station. Nick played nervously with the black zippers that zigzagged across the legs and pockets of her white trousers.
Melissa said, “We didn’t mean to hurt you. I never meant to hurt you.”
And I said hesitantly, “Is it that—do you have feelings for Melissa? For me?”
“For fuck’s sake.” Nick looked like she would dissolve from embarrassment.
“It’s okay if you do,” I said. “We can talk about it. We can talk about anything. The two of you were best mates long before I ever came along. I didn’t mean to do anything behind your back.”
“And I would never come between you and Amanda,” Melissa said. “I know the two of you are very close.”
“Jesus.” Nick looked so uncomfortable I thought she would burst into tears. “I can’t get me head round it, can I?”
“There’s nothing we can’t talk about,” Melissa echoed me.
“Bloody hell, I know it’s got nowt to do with me.” Nick looked at Melissa. “But I never thought you could be a lesbian. I always thought of you as intractably straight.”
“Intractably? Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” Melissa slowly gave a half-smile and I wanted to kiss the delicate creases at the corners of her mouth.
“I know I should be happy for you but it’s just too weird, innit?” Nick said.
“Let’s go back to mine,” Melissa offered.
We walked back to the flat, Nick and Melissa slightly ahead of me, as I watched Melissa’s hips sway in black drainpipe trousers. The streetlight glinted off shiny silver rows of pyramid studs on her bright-red tartan belt. I heard her say, “It’s really my fault. Amanda wanted to tell you straight away. It came about so suddenly. I didn’t know how to handle it.”
I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Waiting for the water to boil, I put PG Tips into three cups and hung my blue denim jacket over a chair. It had the Clash back patch Nick had given me after I’d admired hers and the upside-down American flag sewn under it, on which I’d scrawled, “Jail War Criminal Bush.”
I brought the tea into the sitting room as Nick said, “You don’t understand. You’ve been the one stable woman in my adult life. It’s not that I’m sexually attracted to you, but you’re not just a friend either. D’you know wha’ I mean? But you’ve got your nice life and Amanda here. Wha’d you want me hangin’ about for? I’m an emotional fucking disaster next to you. Emilia pisses off, and I fall apart. Jake leaves—I fall apart. But you’re alright. You never stumble.”
“Stop idealizing me,” Melissa said. “It isn’t fair. I don’t just stumble. I fall over.”
“Yeah? Well, you never show it. At least not to me.” Nick opened and closed the zipper on the right leg of her trousers. “After Jake left, you seemed—distant. I thought maybe you didn’t want me around as much now we were just the two of us. But then that night—when I was attacked—you really came through for me. And I thought, yeah, she really does care about me.”
“Of course I bloody care about you,” Melissa said. “Oh, honey, is that what it is? I’m sorry I seemed distant. Nothing changed in my feelings towards you. I had my own shit going on at the time.”
“You never said,” Nick offered glumly.
“I have a hard time showing that part of myself. It was something—personal.”
For a second I thought she was going to tell Nick about the rape, and my stomach lurched. But then she said, “It had nothing to do with you. I’m so sorry I ever made you feel like I didn’t care. That’s bollocks, and it would never be true. And I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could come to me about it.” She got up and sat next to Nick. “I must have really hurt you.” She put out her hand to touch Nick’s hair. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Now you’re taking the piss,” Nick accused her.
“No, love, I swear I’m not. I’m being sincere. Please forgive me. And please stay here tonight. I’ll never sleep if I don’t know you’re okay.”
After Melissa convinced Nick to spend the night and we’d gone upstairs, I said, “I thought for a second you were going to tell her about the rape.”
“No,” Melissa said, and the flash in her eyes told me not to push it any further, “I wasn’t.”
The first sentence of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies popped into my head. “And if I cried, who’d listen to me in those angelic orders?” And as I got into bed, softly I recited:
“Ah, who can we turn to,
then? Neither angels nor men,
and the animals already know by instinct
we’re not comfortably at home
in our translated world.”